“RIP Britain you went soft on discipline. You raised the cost of living so high that both parents are always at work, rather than spending time with their children. Parents were told ‘No you can’t discipline your kids’. Children had rights blah, blah, blah. Well, Britain you shall reap what you sow, and we have lost a whole generation and turned them into selfish, disrespectful brats who have no respect for people, property or authority! Things need to change!”
The above statement was posted recently on Facebook by a friend of mine and while I do not agree fully with it there are a number of valid issues. I do not think that this applies solely to Britain but the sentiment could be applied to most Western industrialised countries.
I am not so sure that they are dead yet, but there are certain areas of concern. I also don’t think that it is the cost of living that makes both parents go out to work but more of a rise in aspirations.
People in the West expect that they will have their own house, two cars, two holidays abroad a year etc and be able to afford the latest phone, tablet, big screen TV and all the other products that make them a consumable society. Therefore it needs both parents to work to afford all that.
This does indeed mean that children are left more and more with strangers or to fend for themselves at very young ages. The resultant decrease in children’s behavioural standards is denied by parents who are quick to blame everyone except themselves.
If their children are doing poorly at school it is the teacher’s fault, if they are misbehaving outside school it is the fault of the bad youngsers they are hanging around with.
Discipline has broken down between parents and their children. They are not taught the error of their ways because society has adopted rules and practices that make it illegal to punish them.
Whenever I got into a scrape I would get a clip round the ear from the local policeman, or if at school, would be belted. I have not turned into an axe killer because of it. I, along with my generation grew up with a healthy respect for the law, our parents and more importantly all our elders.
Today this is clearly not the case. This is part of the wider problem of a misinterpretation of human rights.
Human rights were put in place to stop governments discriminating against minorities and to protect the individual from abuse from these same governments. They were never meant to take away a parents’ right to discipline their own children.
There needs to be some reining back of these rules because children need structure and guidance.
How do you expect them to grow up to have the same respect as we did when they are not subject to the same conditions.
It is no surprise that in the West the children who are doing best at school and going on to have the finest careers are those from Eastern societies where families are more together and respect for elders is much higher.
I do hope for the future’s sake that we learn from them and that they do not learn from us.
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